


In My Brother's Keeping

by poisontaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Dark Sam, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Oral Sex, Prostitute Dean, Shaving, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-23
Updated: 2009-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:19:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dean's whole world is built on lies. What's one more?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written at two different times. Parts 1 & 2 were written and posted together; Part 3 was written some time later, but follows, chronologically, immediately after and so I've posted it as a single story. Many thanks to mona1347 and nilchance for beta duties.
> 
> Podfic of In My Brother's Keeping (part 1 & 2), recorded by podcath: [[mp3](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/in-my-brothers-keeping)] [[audiobook](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/in-my-brothers-keeping-audiobook)]
> 
> A remix (of parts 1 & 2) written by RivkaT: [Finders Keepers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5672) and its podfic (also recorded by podcath): [[mp3](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/finders-keepers)] [[audiobook](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/finders-keepers-audiobook)]

"What do you do?"

The kid's younger than Dean's normal clientele. Hell, he looks younger than _Dean_. Narrow cat-eyes watch Dean with a hungry intensity that kind of skeeves Dean out but he wouldn't be the first, he won't be the last, and Dean's still got a couple knives tucked away. He can handle himself. So he gives a shrug. "Anything you want, if you pay enough."

Kid's not bad looking, if a bit on the scrawny side. Too handsome to _need_ to buy sex, but Dean's been around and done and seen enough to know that doesn't matter much. The young part, though. That bothers him a bit. Kid looks like he should be working this block more than he should be trolling it.

"Anything?" The kid repeats, rolling it around on his tongue like a candy.

If anything, the hackles on the back of Dean's neck tighten up more, but it's so late it's early and Dean needs the money. So he puts on his bored face, sighs and rattles off the list. "I don't do scat or watersports. You can tie me up or gag me—but not both—and it costs extra. I don't bareback, but I don't charge extra for the condoms." Dean brandishes one between his fingers and gives the kid his most winning smile.

Kid's tongue flicks out from his mouth. "Blood?"

Of course. "Mine or yours?"

Dean watched the kid's iris shrink around the expanding pupil. "Ours?"

Dean shakes his head. "Not gonna happen."

"Then yours." The kid tries to loom over Dean, pulling up the couple extra inches he's got on Dean, but Dean's of the mind that once you've been loomed over by John Winchester, everyone else is just weak tea. He plants a hand on the kid's chest. Not pushing him back, but showing him that Dean could if he wanted to. Kid's only wearing a shirt and sweater, even though it's colder than a witch's tit out here and Dean swears he can feel the kid's heart jump on contact. Not as scary as he pretends, then.

Dean's body is covered in a fine network of scars; some he got hustling, some he got in various and sundry disagreements 'cross the nation and some he got on the job. Letting this kid slice him up a little bit to get his rocks off is no big thing...as long as he can pay for it. "Costs extra," Dean insists again.

Kid reaches in his front pocket and pulls out a wad of cash too big to be flashing in the open on a street like this. Dean's eyes dart left and right as he snatches the kid's hand down low, where their bodies will screen it. "You crazy or something?" Dean demands. "People 'round here will kill you for your shoes and bus fare, asshole, and me just for looking at them wrong!"

Kid's eyes flicker, lock onto Dean's mouth and yeah. Dean knows all about his pretty fucking mouth. "All of it," the kid says, like Dean hasn't said anything at all. "I'll give you all of it."

Dean blinks. "All this to cut me up?" Dean's tempted. He'd be a goddamn liar if he said he wasn't tempted. That fat little wad of cash is enough—more than enough—to do all the tiny but necessary repairs he's been putting off on the Impala. It's enough to do that _and_ get him out of this crapass town and onto the next. Possibly with a couple of nights spent somewhere else than in the back of his baby for gravy. Dean's mouth is fucking _watering_ at the sight of all that green and if he were a less honest man, he'd gank the kid for it. But that would be against the Code.

The same code that says it's just _fine_ to peddle his ass to make the scratch to get on by, but Dean mostly succeeds in not being too bitter about that. Everyone's got to have lines.

Still, nobody offers that kind of dough for a few bleeding scratches and Dean doesn't care _how_ useful that money would be, he's not going to let some kid eviscerate him.

The kid shakes his head. Like when he tried to dominate Dean with his height, it's a little off, betraying nervousness. His hand comes up fast, like a snake striking. Dean flinches but the kid just flattens his hand over Dean's cheek, thumb brushing across the bottom line of Dean's lip. The kid's Adam's apple dips and bobs. "And to fuck you."

Ah. This Dean understands. He wets his lips, flattens his hand back to the kid's chest again and leans into him when he asks, "You got someplace to go?"

Kid nods again. "Yeah." His voice is scratchier, deeper, like he's having a hard time making the spit work. He brushes Dean's mouth then, eyes huge and ravenous, like he's going to eat Dean through them. "I got a place."

Dean open his mouth and slides down the kid's thumb and then back up, mouth a tight **O**. Kid's skin tastes clean, just soap and salt. When Dean looks back up, the kid's eyes have almost no color at all, just the black whorl of the iris. "Then let's go."

***

"Don't you want to know my name?"

"Nope." Dean looks sidelong at the kid, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. Normally, he takes the outside, keeping the trick between him and the wall, giving himself an out, but the kid had steered him into the pole position instead and now Dean has to pretend it doesn't bother him.

Not that he thinks the kid would know if Dean was bothered or not. From all that staring, now he hardly looks at Dean at all, head on the swivel. It's a little unnerving. Most people walk through the world unseeing. If a guy's looking around, then he generally has something he's looking for and nine times out of ten, it's trouble.

Dean doesn't need any more trouble.

"It's Sam."

It's been fourteen years; Dean doesn't even flinch.

"What's your name?"

Dean smirks. "Don't you know how this game works? It's whatever you want it to be."

The kid turns with that same cobra-fast fury, shoving Dean into the wall and holding him there with a huge hand that hints at further growth in his future. "Don't do that. Don't be a whore."

Figures the kid would be a Romeo. Probably wants Dean to act like his boyfriend or some shit. Well, fuck that. Dean mouths a kiss at him. "What do you think I am, sweetheart?"

The kid rears back and Dean tilts his jaw up in anticipation of getting punched. He doesn't expect the kid to wrench his face back to center and plant one on him, tongue thrusting its way into Dean's mouth and dragging all the breath out of him.

Now normally, Dean's fast on the uptake. Real fast. Can't be in his line of work— _either_ of his lines of work—without good reflexes. But the kid—and the kiss—catch Dean flat-footed and by the time he pushes the kid off of him, his mouth feels mauled and sloppy with mingled spit.

"You're _not_ ," the kid insists, eyes boring into Dean again in that squirmy way. It takes Dean a second to even remember what the kid's referring to and in the time it takes him to recollect, the kid's locked his fingers around Dean's wrist and practically jerked him off his feet. "Let's go."

The hotel the kid takes him to is a shithole. Not that Dean expected any better. Hell, he's been sleeping in the Impala for the last month, twisted up like a pretzel. This sad and sordid little closet with its cheap, oversized bed is a little piece of heaven for Dean and his aching back. Not that he expects to get much in the way of rest here.

Soon as they're in the door, the kid's swinging him around like they're in one of those dancing movies—not that Dean ever watches those dancing movies, but when you're trying to stay in out of the weather, you can't always be that picky about which flick you sneak into. Anyway, Dean's ready for it this time when the kid slams him into the wall. Turns his face aside when the kid goes in for the lip lock again and the kid goes for Dean's throat instead, sucking and biting hard.

Dean's bent enough to admit he gets off on a bit of bruising, but not so much that he loses track of what he's supposed to be doing, snaking his hands to the kid's belt and wrestling the tongue from the buckle. He wonders idly if the kid's proportional.

It surprises Dean when the kid bats Dean's hands away, pushing him back against the wall yet again. From the room next door, someone thumps their fist irritably against the plaster. "What the hell—?" Dean gapes at the kid.

"You," the kid says breathlessly, stripping Dean's jacket from his shoulders. "Take your clothes off. I want to see you. All of you."

Oh, it's like _that_ , then. Dean lets his coat drop and toes it out of the way with his boot. It's seen better days, but that doesn't mean he wants...fluids...getting all over it. He goes at the buttons of his shirt slower, making his lips smile as he teasingly coaxes each one through its hole.

The kid reaches out and puts his hand over Dean's, stopping Dean's movement. "Not like that." The kid's voice breaks, just a little. He clears his throat. "I don't want a strip tease." The kid's fingers creep through the neckline gap of Dean's shirt. Dean tips his head back—just a little bit—to see if the kid'll squeeze.

Dean feels like he's holding his breath anyway, standing there with the kid's fingers curved 'round his neck. Kid's fingers twitch like he's going to choke off Dean's breath—like he _wants_ to—but instead he just starts tearing Dean's shirt off himself, fingers greedy on every piece of skin he bares. "I just want to see you naked."

When he gets Dean's over shirt off, he presses up against Dean, fingers sidling up Dean's side and bending to hide his face in Dean's neck. "Just want to touch you."

"All this touching'd be a lot easier on a bed," Dean points out, more gentle about it than he's entirely comfortable with. This isn't Sammy, isn't _his_ Sammy. This is just some fucked up kid that's probably never touched a man anywhere outside wet dreams and Dean is nobody's big brother. Not anymore.

Kid looks shy for the first time, half-ashamed. His lips curl up and he can only look at Dean sidelong and through the thick mess of hair. Fucking emo kids and their girly-ass hair. "Yeah." He's still touching Dean, fingers swirling like he's trying to feel all of Dean at the same time. "That sounds good."

Without the need to make it hot, Dean gets out of his clothes pretty quick, careful to hide his blades where he can still get to them easy, but where the kid can't see them. He puts the condoms and packets of lube on the nightstand, so the kid can't say they weren't easy to hand, with no need to go rummaging through Dean's clothes and find stuff he's got no business in. Dean turns around and finds the kid staring at him. "What?"

Dean's been tricking since he was sixteen; at this point, he doesn't figure there's a whole lot he hasn't seen or done, but it flat wigs him out the way this kid keeps looking at him. Most guys, they don't want to _see_ him or the others like him. They're just a convenient warm hole to fuck, a mouth, a cock to suck. They're interchangeable, cutout whores; stick a quarter in him and look at him blow.

This kid's not looking at Dean like that.

He's looking at Dean like the pretty cheerleader he wants to take to prom but doesn't have the balls to ask out. Like something wondrous and strange, like maybe Dean's a ghost, before the salt, before the fire.

"What?" Dean asks again, irritated this time, because he's nobody's prom-date. He crashed one once, to dispel a spirit, but he's nobody that anybody should look at like that.

Kid doesn't answer him, but he comes across the room, dazed, like he's dreaming. Kid goes to his knees with a thunder and latches onto Dean's thighs, thumb rubbing the inside crease. Dean tangles his fingers through the kid's hair and holds still while the kid just breathes on him, feeling heavy on his bones and too warm for the chill.

"Hey—" Dean starts, and that's when the kid nuzzles him, lips and tongue sliding and rubbing against Dean's lengthening cock. The 'ay' sound draws out on a moan and Dean's hand tightens in sweet-soft strands. "Oh, hey, yeah," Dean breathes, lungs heaving too hard for the whisper of his voice. "You wanna suck me? _Fuck._ Go on and suck."

Any shame Dean had about his body responding to a stranger's touch is long since gone. Just about anybody's cock'd get hard with a warm, wet mouth on it, or with somebody rubbing against that sweet spot inside. It's just sex.

This is just sex.

Kid's got a hell of a mouth on him, though. Dean'll give him that. Kid suckles on him like it's mother's milk with chocolate flavoring and Dean's got to brace himself on the wall to keep from falling down when his thighs dissolve.

He opens his mouth to speak and all that comes out is a strangled squeak. Dean coughs and tries again. "The bed?"

The noise when the kid's lips come off his cock is positively obscene. There's no way Dean's the first man who's ever been in his mouth. Still, he looks as shy as if it was so, when Dean nods toward the bed a second time. It makes his face softer, younger, stretching the years between them until he really might be Sammy's age.

Dean buries the thought that Sammy would be twenty-two now as the kid steers him around to the bed and pushes him down, shoving between Dean's thighs again. The kid strips off his sweater and the tee shirt underneath, revealing all the muscles Dean had only felt before. Kid's still on the scrawny side, but what's there looks solid and hard and don't-fuck-with, striped in almost as many scars as Dean's body. Some are jagged, accidental looking. Others are the straight lines of edged weapons and Dean's willing to bet they're not all self-inflicted.

Stroking Dean awkwardly with his left hand, the kid reaches back and pulls a switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans. He's watching Dean's face but Dean doesn't flinch when the kid shoots the blade, cold, white daylight gleaming off the blade. "You said I could, right?"

Dean thinks about the roll of dough in the pocket of his jeans. Maintenance for the Impala. His ticket out of here and on to the next thing. He needs this money. Better that than another two months of selling his ass around here for less than half as much. Back on the road, back to the hunting. "Yeah," he agrees, already wondering if it's a mistake. He spreads his legs wider, tips his hips and cock up. "But if I say stop, you stop, right?"

The kid looks at Dean for a long moment. Long enough that Dean's just about ready to call it off, thighs and belly tensing up in preparation of a fight. "I'll stop if you want me to," the kid says finally. He tips the knife down, just barely grazing the skin of Dean's thigh with the point. The contact ripples a chill through Dean's body, spreading goose bumps across his skin. Seeing it, the kid grins, still shy, but with something stronger, darker, behind it. "But I'm thinking you won't want me to."

Dean arches his back, showing off a little. "It's your money, man."

He holds his breath some when the kid dips the knife between his legs, scrape-gliding the point across the skin under his balls. It doesn't feel bad and it doesn't feel good but sweat breaks out across Dean's body anyway. He can't look away from the kid's face, eyes wholly dark now and the strange curl of his smile. Kid's so good Dean doesn't even feel the cut, but when the kid reaches and touches him with his free hand, his fingers come back damp with Dean's sweat and blood.

Dean expects the kid's eyes to close when he licks his fingertips, but they don't; he just keeps staring at Dean. "You like how I taste?" Dean asks, not whoring now, not really, but needing _something_ to break the rising tension.

Kid's eyes do close then, shudder-jerk running through his body and his mouth slackening around his fingers. The kid makes a noise that sounds vaguely like a word, but not one Dean can make out. When the kid's eyelashes lift up, he hones in on Dean again, right away, and his voice is the deepest yet. "On the bed. All the way. Now."

Dean shifts over and up, letting the kid push him back on the pillows. The kid strips out of his jeans and shorts and—yeah. He's proportional. Jesus. Dean's ass clenches and he's not sure if it's anticipation or worry.

Kid climbs right up and straddles Dean's legs, that heavy cock tapping Dean's groin and leaving little smears of pre-come across the shaved skin. Dean's gaze goes from the kid's crazy-hungry eyes to the knife he's still holding light and easy. Dean's heart's racing and his breath comes fast and shallow but he makes his voice disinterested when he nods towards the nightstand and says, "Condoms and lube's right there."

"Okay." Kid nods and Dean doesn't relax so much as he eases down a little. A lot of the time you can tell how this is going to go by how willing the trick is to have his dick shrink-wrapped. The kid carves a thin arabesque in Dean's hip, cutting perilously close to Dean's sac before he lifts the blade to lap the blood away. His narrow hips shudder-shift forward, rubbing the two of them together in awkward, bumping friction. Then the kid pitches forward, hand sinking into the pillow next to Dean's head. "You'll stay?" the kid asks. "After." He trails down Dean's chest with his knife hand, touching only with his fingers and the rounded end of the hilt. "The night?"

"Yeah." Dean's throat feels dry. He works his tongue, trying to raise the spit to talk. "Sure."

Kid's paid enough for him, after all. Lot more than Dean would charge for a whole night's work.

The kid grins at him. Flat-out _grins_ , like it's Christmas Day and he just got the Tickle-Me Elmo. He darts his face at Dean's and again, Dean turns aside, getting the kid's mouth across the side of his. "I don't kiss."

The switchblade skitters to the floor and the kid pincers Dean's face between his fingers. "You do," the kid insists, forcing Dean's lips open with his own. "You do, if I want you to."

"Yeah, okay—" Dean doesn't get any further than that before the kid kisses him again, falling on Dean with his whole body and rutting against him. Dean doesn't know what to do with his hands. Normally he doesn't do anything with them, unless the guy asks, but he's conscious of his body in this really weird way, conscious of an impulse to run his hands down the kid's knobbled sides and light on bony hips. Not because he's into it—because he's not—but because the way the kid's rocking into him, so desperate and making little hurt-bird sounds into Dean's mouth. Dean spreads his palms wide and doesn't move them.

When the kid sits up and goes for the lube, Dean starts to roll, ready to go to his belly. The kid pushes him back, eyebrows knitting in over his nose. "What're you doing?"

Dean stares right back, not sure how to answer that question. Most of the time, they don't want to look you in the face. Take you from behind, like a dog, like a thing. Dean's fine with it. Prefers it, really; it's not like he wants to be looking up at the skels that fuck him any more than they want to be looking at him.

But sometimes they want different.

"How do you want me?" Dean asks finally, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

The kid pats Dean's shoulder heavily— _stay here_. "Like this. On your back. I want to see you."

Dean starts to make another comment about how it's the kid's dime, but the look in the kid's eyes stops him as he opens the packet and pours out the lube onto his fingers. Kid doesn't hold it long enough for it to really warm, messy smearing between Dean's legs, around his hole. Dean hates this part, the sloppy fumbling, the need to just _lie there_ and let them do what they want to him. Dean counts water stains on the ceiling—he hopes they're water stains—and waits for the kid to get to it.

The kid's finger is a surprise. Tricks don't waste a lot of their precious paid-for time on prep; it's Dean's job to take it, what's he doing in this biz if he can't take a man's cock up his ass and so on. Of course, the kid's finger is no small adjustment on its own and Dean bucks up, earning that pleased _oh, boy_ grin again. Kid leans his forehead against Dean's, noses rubbing. "God, you feel good."

Kid crooks his finger and Dean loses whatever smart remark he was going to make, flexing on the bed in search of that _oh so good_ rub again. He doesn't have far to go, though, because the kid presses in with a second finger and fucks them both, steadily and just right, in Dean. Not everybody wants Dean to get into it when they fuck; they want a body that lies passive and lets it happen, but the kid's putting in such an effort to make it feel good that Dean feels safe enough letting his breath hiss from his lips in an almost-moan.

"Made you bleed for me; I wonder if I could make you come for me?" the kid murmurs right against Dean's ear, sounding rougher, more adult. "How do you like it, Dean? Hard or soft?"

"H-hard." He hates that he stammers, but he defies anyone not to with someone rubbing right on their sweet spot with magic fucking fingers. Dean opens and closes his hands in the sheets, knuckles aching from being clenched so long. "Oh... _hard_."

The kid slithers down Dean's body to take Dean into his mouth again, _not for one second_ letting up on the regular, deep thrusts of his fingers. The kid's teeth scrape down, over the crown, and then exchange for a coarse, brutal suck that lifts Dean's hips off the bed in pure animal reflex. The kid squeezes Dean down at the root of his cock in warning, but he takes the unexpected buck, smiling around Dean's shaft.

The kid's mouth works him so rough that Dean's sure he's going to have bruises on his dick the next day, but Dean's just fucked up enough to get off on that and he comes, biting down on his own flung over arm to stifle the noise, clenching around the kid's fingers in his ass like he's trying to break them off.

Dean's not even done spasming before the kid's pulling his legs wide and up, thrusting in fast and hard and with a burn that takes what's left of Dean's breath away. He chokes, arching, gasps, and then his mouth is filled with the taste of his own come when the kid launches up and fastens his lips over Dean's.

Dean's signals are all crossed; he can't tell what the kid feels like inside him, other than _huge_. A hell of a lot bigger than his fingers, anyway. The smile's gone. Now the kid's all business. When Dean opens his eyes, the kid's looking dead back at him, their faces too close for either one of them to focus. When their eyes lock, the kid shudders, from the top of his head down, and his hips jab deep, taking what's left of the space inside Dean. The sheets aren't enough; Dean raises his arms over his head and locks his fingers around the headboard, guttural little noises forced out of him at every slam of the kid's cock.

The kid's also riding Dean's sweet spot like he's got GPS and though it's way, _way_ too soon for Dean to even think about getting hard again, each shockwave of sensation makes him shudder and shake, helpless to do anything about it other than take it. Dean lifts his hips into each thrust, tendons starting to ache at how wide the kid's spread him and the repetitive slam of thinly clad bone on bone. "Please, kid..."

"Sam."

Dean swallows past the dryness of his throat, the bitterness. "Please, _Sam._ "

The kid's too close for the kind of coordination it takes to fuck and kiss. Instead, he buries his face in Dean's neck, whining his name over and over again. "Dean. _Dean._ "

"Come on, Sammy."

Dean doesn't even know why he says it, a grue slithering down his spine. It's not intentional. He hasn't called anyone Sammy since... He doesn't call people Sammy, even the rare occasion they've asked him to. But it does the trick. The kid makes that one last, forceful drive in, fingernails digging into Dean's thighs and trembling out his orgasm with locked teeth and closed eyes. He was heavy before, but the kid's twice as heavy when he collapses on top of Dean, panting and Dean pats his shoulder with one hand. "Hey. Yeah. Come on, now."

The kid starts to flex again, not purposefully so much as to wring those last spasms out as he softens in Dean. It's a disconcerting feeling and Dean concentrates on breathing again through the weight of the kid on him. Finally, the kid sighs out against Dean's skin and pulls out, leaving the deep ache of usage. There's a snap of the condom coming off and then the kid rolls to the side, squashed against Dean for space. Splat goes the condom, somewhere in the distance, and then the kid's hands are on him again, tracing swirls into Dean's sweat-damp skin.

"You came really hard," the kid observes, sounding satisfied about it as he traces Dean's nipple around again and again.

Dean doesn't look at the kid, fighting the waves of tiredness again nipping at his heels. He said he'd stay but he'd have to be a damn fool to sleep here, like this. "Yeah, that happens when I get fucked." He winces as the kid suddenly scrapes his nipple with a jagged fingernail. "Don't take it personal." A thought occurs to him then, and he lifts up on one elbow, a second frisson of cold settling at the base of his spine. "Hey. I never told you my name."

The sun's going down, washing them both in blood and gold. Strangely enough, it only makes the kid look sort of angelic when he smiles, reaching forward to cup Dean's face. "Yeah," the kid insists. "You did."

Oh. That's right. He did. "I forgot," Dean says slowly.

The kid's smile gets bigger. "That's okay." He cuddles more up against Dean, pulling Dean to his mouth and kissing him again. Kid sure likes his kissing. "You should sleep," he says seriously when he pulls away. He smoothes a hand down Dean from chest to flank. "I won't let anything happen to you."

Dean nods and closes his eyes as the kid pulls the ratty blanket and spread out from under and then over them. The kid's incredibly warm and Dean's legs are stretched all the way out and the mattress is really soft. It's a total conspiracy.

He's asleep within minutes.  



	2. Chapter 2

_You're not like I thought you'd be._

_Do you know how long I was looking for you?_

Dean wakes up to the kid looking at him. His impulse is to scuttle upright, still foggy, disoriented. He didn't mean to fall asleep here. He certainly didn't mean to hang around long enough to hear the birds tweeting their morning songs at each other outside the window. He races through a quick body check, uneasy and scared about being unconscious in the hands of a trick. But other than the thin, stinging slice in his hip and the dull ache of fucking in his ass, Dean feels pretty much the same as when he fell asleep. 

Jesus, he can't _believe_ he did that.

_Must've been more tired than I thought. Not good, Dean-o. Not good._

The kid's folded up with his arms around his knees and his head resting on his kneecaps, face turned sideways so he can watch Dean sleep. It's a little kid position and it looks weird on a grown man, especially one as big as this one. Dean slides cautiously up to sitting, stitched in goose bumps. "What'd I miss?"

The kid's half-smile widens and he huffs softly in laughter, hiding it by turning his face into his knees. When he looks at Dean again, it's with that same freaky, fond amusement. "I'd like to suck you," he says huskily, "and then I'd like to take you to breakfast. I'll pay," he adds when Dean opens his mouth, before Dean can even get a word out. Kid reaches under the blanket and strokes Dean's bare thigh like you'd stroke a cat. "For the food and the time."

Dean considers. It doesn't take long. "Far be it from me to turn down a free meal, kid. Or a free blowjob for that matter."

The smile falters, flexes down into a frown. "My name's _Sam_ ," the kid says again. "Not 'kid'. Call me Sam."

Dean raises his hands as Sam tugs at the blanket, stripping it away. Dean's toes curl in the chill, but otherwise he doesn't move. "Yeah, okay. Sam. I'm sorry."

Sam folds his legs down and Dean sees he's sporting some pretty impressive wood there. "Spread your legs."

"Yeah. All right." Dean swings his leg around so Sam can settle between them. Sam pushes his shoulders under Dean's knees and _jerks_. The back of Dean's head taps the headboard and then he's down, sprawled out with Sam looking at him all hungry-intense again. Dean's stomach flops and grumbles, not entirely in hunger. "Hey," he calls softly. "Hey, man..."

"I just..." Like Dean was hoping, Sam thaws a little, his expression troubled. "I like looking at you. All right?" His eyes roam the length of Dean's body and Dean thinks he can almost feel Sam's gaze burn its way down like sunlight through a magnifying glass. Which makes him the ant. Typical. Sam's thumb strokes over Dean's naked balls, across the base of his cock and onto the flat of his hip. "Why do you do that? Shave it?"

Dean shrugs. He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to talk. He rolls his hip up a little invitingly, but Sam seems more interested in the texture of his skin than the body attached to it. "Because it's easier to clean up," he says finally. "After." He rubs his calf along Sam's flank. He doesn't mention the part where it makes him look younger. He's twenty-six and he's getting too old for this shit but he doesn't see anything changing any time soon. "Hey. I believe I was promised some oral action, yeah?"

Sam's hand becomes more purposeful as his smile wakens across his face again, long fingers wrapping around Dean's half-hard cock and jacking slow and easy. "You like my mouth, Dean?"

"I like just about anybody's mouth, long as it's wrapped around my dick."

Sam's face gets that little crease again and his fingers tighten for a second, but then he bends down and lips the head of Dean's cock, dipping his tongue into the slit. Dean breathes out, threads his fingers into Sam's hair, molding the curve of his skull, and turns his brain off.

***

"This your car?"

Dean beams at the Impala, resisting the urge to pat her. "That she is."

"She's kind of old." Sam tilts his head at her like he's not sure.

"She's a classic!" Dean does rub his arm across her then, like he's polishing a smudge. Sam's young and was probably raised by people who buy Audis. Dean's gotten over expecting tricks to have anything resembling good taste or common sense.

"Where'd you get her?"

Dean shrugs. "She's been in my family a long time." As soon as he says it, Dean could cut his tongue out, because he doesn't get personal with the tricks. That's like...rule number one. 

"Yeah?" Sam studies the car with new interest, runs his fingers lightly across the window frame. "Huh. He looks across the roof at Dean. "Well, where should we go?"

"What do you mean?" Dean huddles deeper into his jacket. Sun hasn't been up that long and it's still damn cold out. He wonders if he should put off that motel stay he was thinking about in favor for a thrift-store run. He could use some new gear.

"The restaurant. Where should we go eat?"

Dean looks at him. Blinks. "I don't know. I figured you'd have some place in mind."

Sam looks around blankly. "I don't know any places around here. This isn't my town."

"You _came here_ looking for a piece of ass?" Dean demands. "Here? Don't they have guys where you live?"

Sam gets that affronted pissy-face again. "Do you want breakfast or not?"

Dean sighs. "Yeah, I know a place," he says finally. "Get in."

Which is how they end up at Dean's up-so-late-it's-early spot.

Sam insists on crowding in on Dean's side of the booth at the diner, leaving Dean again stuck between him and the wall. That's bad enough, but he throws his arm across the back of the booth and tangles his legs with Dean's under the table, telling the whole world _mine_ as clearly as if he'd pissed all over Dean.

Jess, the day waitress, gives Dean the smirky eyebrow. "Got a new boyfriend, Dean?"

"Oh, _fuck off_ , Jess—" he starts to say.

"What if I am?" Sam chimes in and Dean really does bite his tongue then. 

Jess cocks her head, considering. "Well, then you'd be the first."

Dean tells himself it doesn't matter. He's going to collect his free breakfast, he's going to collect the hundred the kid promised him for sitting through this travesty, and then he's going to get in his baby and hit the road.

"What about girlfriends?" Dean's staring out the front window, trying to _not be here_ , but he sees Sam's head turn toward him. "Dean's a good looking guy—does he have a lot of girls he brings through here?"

Jess makes a thoughtful noise with her tongue. Dean looks over at her, keeping his face just as blank as paper. He's thought about making a run at her a time or two—mostly when he has a few in him—but for all she's well set up, Jess isn't his type of girl. She's putting herself through school, working on getting the fuck out of this place, and she belongs with some fresh-faced kid like Sam here more than she belongs with an old junkyard dog like him. 

"No," Jess allows, "can't say as I've ever seen him with too many girls, either. Dean here's kind of a lone wolf." She smiles at him, warm and sunny—he's fixed her car for her a couple times when she couldn't start it, she throws him an extra slice of pie or some french fries whenever her boss isn't looking—and tosses her hair back. "Now what can I get for you pretty, pretty boys?"

Dean flips her the finger. He's not sure how much Sam's willing to put out on breakfast now that he's milked the cow, so to speak, and he's not sure how much he can stand to put on his empty and irritable stomach, so he gets pancakes and bacon and milk and leaves it at that. Sam, to no one's surprise, given the gangling size of him, orders enough for three people _and_ milk, _and_ coffee, _and_ orange juice.

"Tell me something about yourself." Sam slouches down in the booth and Dean can tell he's going for relaxed, but he can also see that Sam's keeping an eye on the front door, same as Dean. 

"Nothing to tell." Dean spins his knife on the scarred Formica. "Fucking people for money is surprisingly boring. "

"That can't be all you do." Sam's leg rubs along Dean's and Dean can't tell if it's some kind of lame come-on or whether Sam's just that restless. 

Well, no. It's not all Dean does, but Dean's not about to disclose the details of his other life. Not to some random stranger and definitely not to some random stranger _trick_. He's been trying to keep his cool, hold out through the free food and for the extra dough, but there are _lines_ , goddamn it, and this wet behind the ears _kid_ is trying to step over all of them. 

"Look." Dean slaps his hand down on the spinning knife, halting its progress. "I appreciate all you're doing here, giving the hustler a little handout, treat him like a 'real person' or whatever it is that your liberal fucking guilt tells you you need to do to feel better about fucking me up the ass, but just stop it, okay? We're not friends. We're not _pals_. And you sure as fuck are not my boyfriend, okay?" Dean realizes he's raising his voice and that the few other patrons are starting to stare. Sam is staring too, color in his face like Dean slapped him. A little splinter of guilt starts to surface and Dean shoves its head back under and stands on it. Lowering his voice, he hisses, "You paid for my _time_. You paid for my body to be here, but you didn't buy my whole life, man. You don't get to have that too."

"How much for that, then?"

Dean goggles at Sam. Then, drop-kicking his surprise next to his guilt, he lifts up in the seat. "Let me out." His thighs jostle the table. "Let me out of this fucking booth!"

Sam looks panicked then, grabbing at Dean's sleeve. "Wait, no! It was a joke. I was kidding! I'm sorry. I swear, I was just kidding."

Slowly, grudgingly—and not wanting to make a bigger scene than he has already—Dean slides back down. 

"I'm sorry," Sam says again, blushing harder. "I'm not very good with jokes. "

"Yeah, no shit." Dean's trembling. It feels like anger, but the knot in his belly is so tight, he can't really tell. 

"I do want to see you again." Sam reaches like he's going to put his hand over Dean's and Dean braces to pull away, but Sam lets his hand fall to the table at the last minute, close enough that Dean can feel the heat from his skin. 

"Look, this has been fun and all, but I got things to do." Dean slides his hands back and lets them fall onto his own thighs. "I don't know what you think happened here, but..."

"Pancakes and bacon," Jess announces, sliding Dean's plate across the table with a _you okay?_ look. Dean nods curtly, embarrassed. "Hungry Man Breakfast for you," she smiles at Sam, an edge of frost on it. "I'll bring your full stack and ham steak back when I bring the syrup."

"Thanks." Sam grins up at her and Dean watches Jess blink like she's sun-dazzled. 

To Dean's surprise, Jess bumps Sam in the shoulder with her hip, smile warming to its full wattage. "No problem. Coming right up."

"So what do you think?" Sam spreads his paper napkin across his legs, picks up his utensils and then looks at Dean expectantly.

Dean casts his mind backward, fumbling for his train of thought. They'd been talking about something. "Think about what?"

"Letting me hire you for the week." Sam's face scrunches and he shakes his head like he can't believe Dean forgot already. Dean can't believe it either. "It's a lot of money," Sam points out. 

It _is_ a lot of money. And Dean needs it and the problem is that Sam knows it. Dean shakes his head. "What exactly do you think you're going to get out of this, man?"

Jess comes back with syrup and Sam's plate of pancakes and slab of ham. Sam shrugs, digging in with a happy noise. "I don't know anybody here and I don't have time to make friends. You never been lonely before, Dean?"

Sam pauses and Dean realizes he's looking at him, dark-eyed and expectant. Dean swallows his mouthful of pancakes in a mouth suddenly gone dry. "I do all right." Sam flicks a smile, but he's still waiting for something. Dean sighs. "Fine. One week of my very expensive time. Whatever. But I want half up front and the rest to be paid out across the seven days."

Sam beams and it _is_ dazzling. Dean might be hard, but he's not stone and even he can feel it. "Awesome. Yeah. Cool." He tucks back into his breakfast and then pauses. Shoves the plate of ham at Dean. "There's no way I can finish all this food. I don't know what I was thinking. You want some?"

And even though Dean's _played_ this game with some of the skinny tweeny girls that got no business being out on the street in the first place, Sam does it so artlessly that Dean can't get mad about it. And he's still hungry. Dean sighs. "Yeah, sure."

***

Hanging out with Sam is not exactly a hardship, though it does have its moments. Sam tends to hackle like a guard dog at anyone getting too close to Dean, handles Dean like Dean's his cat or dog, and keeps himself plastered to Dean's side pretty much all the time. He also fucks like a twenty-two year old with access to unlimited ass—which is to say, _constantly_.

On the other hand, it's the first time in a long time that Dean's spent any amount of time around someone who isn't as beat down as he is. Most hunters are his dad's age and got into the biz like he did, through some personal clusterfuck that left them unfit to ever live life entirely in the light again. Most of the other kids he's met on the street are younger—because by and large they don't live as long—but no less irretrievably fucked up. And while he might shoot the shit and mock-flirt with people like Jess, it's not like she was ever going to invite him home to meet the folks or anything crazy like that.

Which reminds him... "What about your family?" Dean asks, in a last ditch effort to stave off orgasm, rocking against the wall of the photobooth as Sam both sucks him and fucks him with two rough, unlubed fingers. Dean doesn't even know how Sam fit down there on his knees in the narrow space, even with one of Dean's legs over his shoulder.

Sam's mouth goes slack and then he pulls off, blinking hazily up at Dean. "What?"

"I mean, here you are all on your own with all this dough, throwing it away on hookers and..." Sam gives him a look and Dean sighs, amending, "...on _me_..." Sam doesn't like it when Dean calls himself a hooker. "...and museums and craphole hotel rooms and— _ohgod_ —and a guy's got to wonder. Don't you have any family?"

Sam's face hardens a little and, even though it's only been a couple days, Dean recognizes the _thin ice_ face. "I don't know my family. They..." Sam huffs and Dean's toes curl as heated breath touches his wet and cooling cock. Sam looks up. "I got a brother." He flexes his fingers and Dean bites down on a moan, hips jerking hard enough that his dick glances across Sam's cheek. 

"Yeah? Me too." Dean blames the lack of blood going to his brain. There's no other explanation for it. 

"Yeah?" Sam pulls out, leaving Dean open and delicate-feeling. Sam stands, big hands coaxing Dean around to press his face into the wall. "Where's he?"

"I don't know." 

Sam fishes in Dean's pulled down pants for the lube and condoms and Dean tries to squash his memories of Sammy back down. He doesn't know why he even brought this up. Soft purr of plastic ripping and then Sam presses into Dean again with those same two fingers, smoother this time, wetter.

"You don't get along?" Sam's voice is different during sex. Deeper, more grown up, surer of himself. In the real world, Sam's kind of awkward and a little socially stupid, but when it comes to sex, he knows what he wants and how to make Dean do it. Dean tries not to think too hard about why that might be. 

"I lost him." Dean grinds his forehead into the plastic-sheathed metal of the wall and tries to pretend the words are coming from somewhere else, like one of those museum narrators. 

"Lost him how?" Sam stabs especially deep, especially hard, manipulating Dean's spot so hard Dean's knees go weak.

"They... My dad..." Dean can smell himself, filling up the tiny space. Fear-stink, want, the precome dripping off his dick as Sam works him wide. "They took him away. Would've taken me too, if I'd been home."

"Where were you?"

"Food. We...there wasn't any food left. I went to go get some and when I got back... They already had him. I was... I tried to follow them, but they were in a car and I..." The sob that comes out of Dean's throat is just the pleasure-pain as Sam fucks him with his fingers. Just that. 

Fuck. Sammy.

"Tell me," Sam whispers, right against Dean's ear like an angel over his shoulder. The fingers withdraw and Sam's cock replaces them, nestled right against Dean's rim. "Tell me the rest."

"My dad. They thought he was dangerous. That Sa...that my brother was in danger. So they moved him out of state. We couldn't find out where."

"Good." Sam's voice pinches flat as he pushes in. Dean's fingers scrabble at the wall but there's nothing to hang onto. "That's good, Dean. Come on. Tell me."

Dean shakes his head, throat aching like someone punched him in it. "Nothing else to tell. We looked, but we couldn't find him, couldn't find anyone who would tell us what they did with him."

Sam hums in his throat, still easing into Dean with a slowness that's driving Dean insane, muscles fluttering and spasming with the desire to push Sam out of him. "And do you miss him? Your brother?"

"Stop it," Dean whispers, dry as dust. "Just...stop it. If you want to fuck me, fuck me, but quit fucking _with_ me. Stop it!"

"I didn't bring it up, Dean," Sam says, way too calm for a guy who's just about balls deep in someone's—in _Dean's_ —ass. "But okay. You don't have to say anything else." His arm creeps around Dean's waist and his forehead dips into the curve of Dean's neck. "God. Oh, God, you're so fucking _tight_..."

Dean closes his eyes.

***

"This is stupid," Dean complains.

"You're the one that said you liked it," Sam answers absently. He's absorbed in his work, hair falling over his forehead and hiding his eyes..

All things being equal, Dean guesses he'd rather Sam stayed focused, so that's just as well. He resists the urge to squirm. "I didn't say I _liked_ it. I said it's easier." He glances toward his phone, lying on the nightstand far enough from the bowl of water that there shouldn't be any splash.

"Quit squirming." 

"Believe me, I haven't moved."

"Oh?" Sam smiles as he teases the straight razor across Dean's perineum. He stops shaving and rubs the rounded back edge of the razor against the base of Dean's cock. "I think I've seen this twitch once or twice." Dean's cock—which has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to really important things like sharp objects way too close to it—stirs and starts to rise. Sam smiles, pleased and close-lipped. "Yeah, like that."

Dean's thighs ripple with the desire to close his legs and shut Sam out, literally and figuratively. Everything with them is like this, with Sam trying to worm across, over and through Dean's defenses and Dean ducking and dodging as best he can. It doesn't help that Sam really is like a bratty younger brother. Well, except for the fucking Dean at every random opportunity part. 

And now this weird grooming fetish. 

Dean's breath goes out in a long hiss as Sam strokes him with the hand covered in shaving cream. It's a little weird having a trick that spends so much time worrying about whether Dean gets off. But on the other hand, Dean's never had a trick that's stuck around longer than it took to stick it in and come, so it's possible he isn't the best judge. Breathing heavy through his mouth as Sam jacks more purposefully, Dean glances at his phone again.

The flat of the razor slaps sharply against Dean's hip. Startled, Dean looks back to Sam. "What the fuck is so important on the damned phone?" Sam tosses the razor into the bowl of water with an impatient splash that douses Dean's phone. Dean twists and dives for it, but Sam gets there first, scooping it up and shaking the water from the face. "You waiting for someone else to call, Dean?"

Dean reaches for the phone, but he's still got Sam straddling his thighs and between that and Sam's freakishly long arms, there's just no chance. "Give it to me."

"I asked you a question, Dean."

"Give me the fucking _phone_ , Sam."

Sam throws the phone across the room, fast and hard like a baseball pitch. It's not a very good phone, but even if it was, there'd be no holding up against that; it shatters in a rain of plastic and parts.

"Goddamn it!" Dean pushes Sam off of him. Not expecting it, Sam flails a minute and then falls off the foot of the bed. Dean climbs off the side, swiping shaving cream out of his crotch and flinging it on the floor. "That was mine!"

Sam scrambles up and charges Dean. Even though Dean was ready for it, Sam's momentum still lifts him a little off his feet, letting Sam drive him into the wall. Sam's hand wraps around Dean's throat. "I asked you a question, Dean," Sam says again, voice trembling and deep. _"Tell me."_

"My dad!" Dean bursts out. "I'm waiting for a message from my dad!"

Sam's fingers leave Dean's throat so fast it's like they disappear. Dean slides down the wall and, a moment later, Sam crashes down almost on top of him. He looks like a poleaxed steer. "Dad...your dad? He's still alive?"

Dean coughs. Sam hadn't squeezed long enough or hard enough to do any real damage, but that doesn't mean it didn't sting some. "Yeah, my dad's alive," he growls, massaging his throat. "Why the hell wouldn't he be?"

"I just..." Sam sort of falls backwards, onto his ass instead of his knees. "You never mentioned him."

"I don't just _mention shit_ to my tricks," Dean spits. There's a part of him that wants to feel sorry for Sam, he looks so stricken, but it was none of Sam's business in the first place and so fuck him. Dean pulls his legs up and starts shoving his way up the wall, looking around for his clothes. 

"No, wait!" Sam lunges and grabs Dean's wrist. Dean shakes him off. "Dean, I'm sorry, okay? I'll buy you a new phone."

"You just don't get it, do you? It's great that you've got all this money to throw around, Sam, _but you can't buy everything!_ "

"I know that!" Sam grabs him again, both hands this time, wrist and forearm. "I'm sorry, I just get mad. What do you want me to do?"

Dean shakes his head. His head aches, ugly throbbing in both temples and the old break in his nose, and he rubs the bridge tiredly, not even sure what to say. He actually kind of likes Sam, but the crazy possessiveness is getting old fast and no amount of money can make up for Dean starting to feel like Sam's lapdog. Besides, he's got work to do. His dad would be checking in soon enough or sending coordinates, and Dean needed to be ready. "What do you think we're doing here, man? You think this is going to be some happy ever after and we ride off into the sunset together?"

Sam opens his mouth and then shuts it again, everything he's thinking—wanting—printed across his young, stupid face. 

Oh, Jesus.

"Sam." Dean scratches the back of his neck with his free hand—the one Sam's not clinging to. He's not sure if he wants to laugh or puke. He tries to keep his voice gentle and steady. "I'm a hooker and you're just a messed up kid."

"Stop saying that." Sam shakes his head. "Stop...talking at me like you know everything and I'm just some dumb kid. I've done things, Dean. Things that..." Sam's mouth presses shut abruptly. "I've done things," he says again. "And you..." Sam darts up, glomming onto both Dean's shoulders. "You hunt things. You save lives."

Dean's belly shrinks up, more than the cold of the room slipping up and down his spine. He goes still, mind racing as he tries to figure out how far away his knives are. He can't remember. Sam undressed him and he can't freaking remember. "How...what do you know about that?"

"I know everything about it." Sam's voice takes on the smug assurance he gets when they're fucking. "I know everything about you. My name is Samuel Winchester." Sam's thumb strokes along Dean's collarbone, almost ticklish. 

"No." It's weak. Not even a whisper. It ought to be a shout.

"My parents are John and Mary Winchester."

"No," Dean says again, but it doesn't seem like enough. He licks his dry lips, trying to look anywhere but at Sam. But Sam fills up his vision like there's nothing else to see. "Stop."

"Mary Winchester, my mother, died in a fire in my nursery."

"Stop it. Shut your goddamned _mouth_."

"She was killed by a demon."

_"Shut up!"_ He doesn't know that. Sam doesn't know that. _Can't_ , because Dean doesn't know that. A demon? How can Sam know that?

"When I was eight years old, my older brother—you remember me telling you I had a brother? When I was eight, my brother Dean went to go get food, because Dad didn't come back when he was supposed to and there was nothing left. And while he was gone, Georgia Child Protective Services came to our shithole apartment on Maple and took me away."

"Sammy?" He doesn't mean to say it. Doesn't mean to because this isn't Sammy. Can't be. 

"They sent me to Florida. Or...they tried to. Because we were on the road when demons came and took me away." Sam's fingers flex on Dean's shoulders, no longer caressing.

"Christo."

Dean says it and doesn't mean it ( _is that really you, Sam?_ ), but Sam only shakes his head, a smile curling the corners of his lips. "Won't work, Dean. I'm still me. Still human." Sam gets closer, the same thumb moving to trace the line of Dean's jugular. Dean shudders. "Still your brother."

"I... Why would they do that?" He doesn't want Sam's hands on him. He doesn't want the memory of the things Sam's done to his body, to his own brother's body. Jesus Christ. This cannot be Sammy.

He cannot have been fucking his brother—his _little_ brother—for the last week.

Sam leans in, touching his forehead and nose to Dean's. "Because I, Dean Winchester, am a very special boy." Sam tugs him forward, just a little bit, so he can plaster their mouths together. Dean should fight him, he knows he should, because this—somehow—is either his little brother or something monstrously worse, but he can't. He just can't, letting Sam force him open, rub against him, hot and purposeful. When Sam pulls away, he's still smiling. "Now come on. Get dressed. 

"Let's go find Dad."

_And now I have you, Dean._

_And now you're mine._


	3. Chapter 3

"I have to pack," Sam says.

His hands are still on Dean's shoulders, but there's no pressure to them other than the normal weight of skin and bone. Dean could shove Sam aside. He should shove Sam aside, get the hell out of here. There's no way that this can be Sammy—dear God, little _Sammy_. No way. Sammy's gone. Sammy's been gone for years. Ha, ha, try again next life, Dean-o.

He should totally get out of here. He should _run_.

He doesn't know why he doesn't.

"Why don't you take a shower while I get my stuff together?" Sam says in that same weird, calm voice. His thumbs trace the lines of Dean's collarbones and a faint smile crooks the wide line of his mouth. "You're kind of sticky."

"Yeah," Dean says dully, feeling like his mouth is full of marbles and his lips numb. Sam's cock is half-hard, jousting bluntly against Dean's in persistent reminder of all the things they've done--that he's _let_ Sam do to him over the last week.

This _cannot_ be his brother.

His little brother.

Sam's smile widens a little at Dean's surrender but he lets Dean go and takes another step back, giving Dean the space to move. To _breathe_. And Dean needs it.

Tactically, this is Dean's chance to run, if he's going to do it. Yeah, he's naked, but everything he owns in the world is just downstairs in the Impala anyway. Little nudity never killed anyone. But instead, he finds himself shuffling in a cringing line to the grimy bathroom, covering himself with his hands like that's going to make a goddamn bit of difference _now_.

Dean closes the door. The lock's busted and the wood's thin enough that Sam could breathe on it and blow it down like the Big Bad Wolf but Dean feels the need for that little illusory bit of solidity between them.

He turns on the taps as hot as he can coax from the ancient pipes, turning the cheap, cracked bar of soap around in his hands. There's no place in this shithole hotel room that doesn't have ghosts—the ghosts of him and Sam and all the sick, fucked up things they've done.

How many mornings did Sam climb into this same brown-stained tub with him, take this bar of soap from his hands and lather his fingers to wash Dean all over? How many times did those same soapy hands coax—push—Dean to his knees for Dean to stretch his lips around the thick girth of Sam's cock…

Dean crashes to his knees yet again, but this time it's to vomit, a thin, bitter bile that stings his gums and tongue.

This can't be Sam. He knows it _can't be_ Sam, but now that the words have been said, he can't stop hearing them, can't stop thinking them, can't stop feeling Sam all over his skin. There's been a hole in his life for more years than he cares to remember; a hole where his family used to be. Mom, dead. Sammy, as good as, as far as anyone knew. And Dad...

If Dean has to characterize it, he'd have to tally John Winchester among the living dead; too damn cuss stubborn to lay down and die, but without anything inside him left alive.

And that's Dean's fault.

Dean closes his eyes, the anemic shower spray falling on his head like tears, soaking his short hair and streaking into his burning eyes, his open, gasping mouth, filling it with the taste of metal and minerals. He doesn't know when this became his life. He doesn't know how. And yet. It seems somehow fitting, part and parcel of the ongoing cosmic joke against Dean Winchester that Sam is—somehow—his brother.

Dean's fucked up every other single thing in his life...why not this too?

"Hey." Dean didn't hear the door open, but the heat of Sam's fingers over the upraised bone of his shoulder is unmistakable. The difference in temperature shows him that he's been under the shower's fall long enough for the lukewarm water to turn cold. Sam—Sam's heat—feels good. Dean's stomach jerks and lurches again, but gives up nothing but bitterness. "Come on." Sam caresses Dean's skin gently. So gently. "Let's get you out of here."

For all his youthfulness, Sam is strong. He half lifts Dean out of the tub, Dean's legs stubborn and dragging. Sam stumbles Dean over the lip and then presses Dean into a sit on the tub's squared lip, dragging one of the grayed towels from the rod.

"Don't," Dean croaks, barely audible as Sam shrouds his head in the towel and scrub-dries his hair. Dean's fingers curl tautly around the tub's rim, knuckles groaning with the pressure.

Sam ignores him, or doesn't hear.

"Don't," Dean says again, louder, finally pushing Sam back from him.

Sam puts his hands on his hips, mouth flattening. "What's wrong?"

Dean wheezes a laugh, arthritic and old-sounding, and doubles over, belly muscles aching like somebody stabbed him.

Sam sighs and kneels down, even though the narrow room's hardly big enough for it. Again, those big hands frame Dean's shoulders. "Look, I know I laid a lot on you all at once. It's a shock, I get it. But it's okay, Dean. I found you. _I found you._ And now we're together." Sam shakes Dean's shoulders briskly, a gesture that, horrifyingly, reminds Dean of Dad. "Things are going to be okay."

Dean laughs and laughs, that same sick, gasping laugh, tears pouring down from his eyes.

***

When they stop for gas and Sam is reaching for the door handle, Dean says, low and furious, "We're not having sex again."

Sam blinks at him, looking confused, as though he doesn't know what Dean's talking about. Like he doesn't have a fucking clue. "What are you talking about?"

"You and me. You...you should've told me, Sam. You should've told me we were brothers. You don't... All the stuff we've done. That's not the kind of shit you do with your brother."

Sam's weight settles back in the seat, making the springs groan. He's so big. When did he get so big? "I did. You did."

"I didn't know it was you!"

"But you liked it," Sam points out calmly. "You liked having sex with me."

"But I didn't _know_!" Dean insists again. He scrubs his hands down his face, trying to recover his composure.

There hasn't been enough time. Not for Dean to wrap his brain around this, not for him to figure out what to do. Dean's no strategist. What the hell is the SOP for your little brother showing up out of the blue, fucking your brains out— _for a week, for a fucking week_ —and then revealing hey, he's family. What's the goddamn plan for _that?_ Can't call up Dad and ask him, that's for sure.

But Sam insisted on coming with Dean, packing all his stuff in the Impala right next to Dean's and Dean—for reasons he still doesn't totally understand (except for the fact that this is maybe Sammy)—let him do it.

And now here they are.

Sam is looking at him, that weird, pissy, hot-eyed look, like he's trying to bore a hole right through Dean and get a good, long gander inside. He said demons took him—demons!—had him for the last fourteen years; maybe that's exactly what he's doing. How the fuck would Dean know?

"I don't know why you're so pissed, Dean," Sam says finally. "I'm starting to feel like you're not even _glad_ that I found you."

"I would've been glad if you hadn't _fucked me first_!" Dean's voice gets a little loud and he catches himself, looking around to make sure no one heard. "Jesus Christ, Sammy. Don't you get it? Don't you get how sick that is?"

"It's not like you're going to get pregnant." Sam waves a hand at him dismissively before his head cocks to the side and he looks at Dean like he's considering. "Though...that could be interesting. I think we'd have a great baby. Don't you think?"

"You are sick," Dean says and it hurts him deep in his soul to admit it. "What did they do to you, huh? What—did they make you like this?"

He regrets even asking the question, especially as the faint smile on Sam's face closes up, dimples smoothing out. Of course the demons did this to him. That's what demons do; they take everything good in the world and fuck it up, purely for the pleasure. Sam hadn't been anything like this before.

If this is really Sam.

"I don't want to talk about that," Sam says stiffly. "That part is over. It's just us now. You and me. And Dad, when we find him. Hey, we gotta get you a new phone." The smile Sam offers him is grotesque, pasted on and separate from every other part of his face, a mask that covers only his lips. "Wouldn't want to miss dear old Dad."

"Sam—" Dean starts, without any idea of what comes next.

"I gotta take a piss," Sam says, levering the Impala's door open. "I'll pay for the gas while I'm inside." Sam climbs out of the car, stands with his back to Dean for a couple seconds, then twists around to stick his head back in. "And we're totally having sex again, Dean," Sam informs him, the more real smile tugging up the corners of his lips.

"No, we're not!" Dean shouts after him, leaning across the seat to get maximum volume as Sam trots away.

And that, he resolves, is that.

***

"Pull over here."

"Here?" Dean repeats, but his hands seem to move on their own recognizance and swing the wheel smoothly sideways.

"Yeah." Sam is more animated than he's been in the last couple hours, practically bouncing in his seat. "Turn in there." He points at a graveled driveway, set between two thickets of bracken and bush.

"What the hell is here?" Dean asks, squinting through the windshield.

"Just some old house."

Dean can see that much for himself, when the trees open up, the kind of ramshackle, falling down farmhouse that he seems to spend half his time, either hunting things or, when hustling is especially bad, squatting. Sometimes both, depending on how it all goes.

"Yeah?" Dean eyes the muddy circle of dead ground, the sagging roof and slump-shouldered walls. "Well, what's so special about this old house? What're we doing here?"

Sam grins and stretches his arm along the back of the seat to finger the nape of Dean's neck, a tickly, uncomfortable sensation, like when his hair gets too long. "Having some fun."

"Sam, I told you—"

"I don't want to argue about it," Sam says prissily and Dean's jaw clicks, his mouth claps shut so fast.

The inside of the house is gloomy with shadow, but not so much that Dean can't make out the symbols carved and painted in the plaster, stopping him on the threshold. "What is this?"

"It's nothing." Sam nudges at him from behind, too close, his hands flittering to Dean's hips, and Dean ducks away, the floorboards groaning uneasily under his boots. "Like I said, just some old house." Once Dean is clear of the doorway, Sam steps around him, turning in slow circles to look at all the symbols. "Huh. Crazy, huh?"

He hasn't even made up his mind that this _is_ Sam yet, and still Dean hates the suspicion that roughs up his voice when he says, "All this demonic shit mean something to you?"

"This?" Sam turns to look at Dean, a startled smile fleeting across his face, followed by a short laugh. "This isn't demonic. This is just…gibberish. A lot of it's not even real."

"Not real?" Dean thinks he vaguely recognizes one of the symbols, maybe something he saw on a Zepplin album cover, or maybe B.O.C. "Huh. And you're an expert, huh?"

"Nobody's an expert, Dean." Sam's got the snotty little brother voice perfect there, making Dean's heart clench painfully. "I know some things. Huh. I know enough to know this isn't the same as the rest of this pop culture bullshit."

Dean turns around to look at the symbol Sam's talking about, a swirly bit of wall calligraphy that looks a bit like a harp. "Oh, no?"

"No," Sam says, back to Dean but sounding thoughtful. "Hey, Dean? Do you have any spare gasoline in the car?"

Later, at a minimum safe distance from the house, Sam strips Dean naked and bends him over the Impala's trunk, fucking him slow but hard and watching, delighted, as it burns.

***

"I want you to teach me."

Sam comes back from the diner's bathroom and slides into the booth next to Dean, his fingers straying over Dean's outspread thigh to finish in the fork of Dean's crotch. Dean's shoulders hunch nearly to his ears. "Don't," he mutters, though he knows Sam won't listen. He takes the time to drag a handful of fries through the ketchup and cram them in his mouth, chewing methodically, before he asks, "Teach you what?"

Sam wipes a dribble of ketchup from Dean's bottom lip and then licks it from his own fingertip, smiling around it. Dean goes along with it—like he's gone along with everything else so far—because he just doesn't know what the fuck else to do.

What difference does it make at this point, anyway?

"Teach me what you do. Teach me hunting. Killing things, saving lives."

"What the hell do you know about it?" Dean's anger spikes unpredictably. Maybe it's a warped echo of Sam's equally erratic moods. Still. _Still._ "You think you know what hunting's like? You think it's a _game?_ You think it's _fun?_ "

Sam looks wounded when Dean snaps at him, which doesn't help at all.

"I just want to know you. It's important to you, right? To us? The family? I'm part of the family. I'm your brother."

"I don't know _what you are_ ," Dean mutters into his burger, squirming as Sam continues to stroke him. "I thought you wanted to find Dad," he says louder.

Sam shrugs, finally abandoning Dean's dick to throw his arm across the back of the booth. "You said he'd get in touch with you, sooner or later. Right?" His fingers tickle the back of Dean's head. "Right?"

"Yeah." Dean shoves his plate away. His stomach feels knotted up and sour. "Right."

"Y'all done with your meal?" The waitress gathers the empty dishes with the same economy that Dean might strip and reassemble a gun, though her smile's warm enough.

"There's always room for dessert, right?" Sam smiles back, the infectious and innocent grin that makes Dean want to smile along with him, even knowing what he knows. "And he's too thin." Sam wraps his arm around Dean's neck. It's not choking, it's not even a warning gesture, but Dean flinches a little anyway. "What do you recommend?"

"Well, I like the peach pie, me, but the peaches are canned. If'n you want fresh, the strawberry's pretty good."

"How about one of each?" Sam looks at Dean like Dean has a say or gives a shit one way or the other. Dean shrugs. "With ice cream?"

Dean's stomach hasn't been right in years and it clenches into a tight little knot at the thought of trying to cram down sickly sweet pie, even with the ice cream to soothe the way. But he shrugs again.

"You're too thin," Sam says again, when the waitress moves off. He lets Dean go, applies himself to the rest of his bacon cheeseburger. "We've got to fatten you up." He looks sidelong at Dean. "But not too much." Sam's grin has crumbs of hamburger in it, a smear of mixed ketchup, mayo and mustard across his bottom lip. "Hunting weight."

***

"King or two queens?"

"Heh. Two queens." Sam elbows Dean in the side, making sure he gets the joke. Dean raises his eyebrows and nods, his smile a thin, sick thing that comes and goes. "Yeah, no, we'll take the king." Sam peels some money off his apparently endless roll of cash and pays off the kid behind the counter. "Me and my brother, we're very close."

The kid stares at Sam, mouth open far enough that Dean can see the teeth marks on the kid's bone-colored wad of gum.

Dean swipes the key off the counter with the same quickness he'd palm a wallet and latches onto Sam's arms with both hands. "Ahahaha. I told him that shit isn't funny," Dean explains to the kid, "but he just keeps on telling that lame old joke at every motel. I told you, _honey_ ," he says tightly to Sam, "just because it's a small town doesn't mean you can joke that way with people." He jerks Sam away from the counter with surprising ease for all Sam's size. "Sorry about that," Dean calls over his shoulder, and hustles Sam out the door.

 _"Jesus Christ, Sam!"_ Dean blows up, too pissed to be scared as he shoves Sam away from him and goes stalking down the sidewalk toward their room. "You can't just _say_ shit like that to people!"

"It's the truth, isn't it?" Sam follows behind him, confident sex-god Sam trading off for weirdo little-kid Sam, his own screwed up version of Jekyll and Hyde. Sam kicks a stone on the sidewalk and it cracks into the sole of Dean's boot. "We are brothers."

Dean gets to the door of number 7— _lucky numbah 7!_ —and jabs the key at the lock, blindly. His chest is too tight and his head aches and so does his jaw. Hell, he aches all over.

"And we are close," Sam continues, sounding more reasonable.

He presses right up against Dean's back and puts his hand over Dean's, steadying his hand long enough for the two of them to jam the key in the lock and turn it over. The cheap door springs open—inward—like it's on a spring, rattly knob slamming into the wall. There's already a ring etched in the plaster, ghost of a thousand hasty openings. Dean sails on through, the skin between his shoulder blades crawling, like he's got the heebies.

"We can't keep doing this." Dean sits down—kind of collapses, really—on the foot of the bed. The single, king sized bed. He rubs his hands over his thighs, calluses making a rasp against the denim like the wash of the ocean on sand. "We can't… We can't keep _doing_ this."

"Doing what?"

That laugh, that hysterical laugh from the bathroom is pushing up again, like puke, like _bile_ and Dean struggles to swallow it back down, to talk his way around it as Sam kneels down in front of him again, so much— _too much_ —like the eight year old kid Dean remembers.

"Why don't you get it?" Dean asks, reaching out, knotting his fingers in the crisp cotton of Sam's shirt. All of Dean's shirts are old or Goodwill-new, worn down to malleable, comfortable softness. Not so with Sam's clothes, all of them new, practically still got the tags on them, just like his shoes, his luggage, like Sam didn't have anything before he took it into his demon-addled mind to look up his brother.

Or maybe like he tried to leave everything of that old life behind.

"What did they do to you, that you don't get it?" He can feel Sam's heart beating under his knuckles, strong, human, _real_ , and he can't bullshit it any more. This is Sam. He knows it's Sam, maybe he's always known it's Sam. Sammy came back.

But Sammy came back _wrong_.

"What do you want, Sam?"

Sam's head pulls back, even though he lets Dean keep his grip on his shirt. A narrow, suspicious look crosses his face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean _what do you want_ , Sam? You didn't come all this way looking for nothing. And I'll be the first to say I'm a damn fine lay, but you didn't come just to plow my ass. So what the fuck is it? Is it revenge? Because I screwed up and let them take you away? You want to hurt me? Hurt Dad? What is it you want?"

Sam looks puzzled, he looks vaguely hurt. "Well...I... _You,_ Dean. I want you. I want us to be a family again."

Dean's lips screw up, doubtful. "Yeah, but families don't _fuck each other_ , Sam."

The expression of confusion on Sam's face only deepens and the bottom falls out of Dean's irritable stomach, leaving only a cold darkness without end. _No. Oh, hell, no._

Sam turns his face away. "Mine does," he says, nearly too softly for Dean to hear, even close as they are.

Fire spurts up from the darkness like a volcano erupting. He grabs Sam's other shoulder, fingers digging in to make it hurt, to make Sam swing around and look at him again. "Sam. _No._ Those demon fucks that took you...they're not your family. They were never your fucking family."

Sam's jaw hardens, a man's face, thick bone and hard muscle, but his eyes are still so much a kid's. "And you are?"

He's going to hell. He's going straight to hell...but it's not like he doesn't deserve it. "Yeah, Sam. You and me...we're family. Always."

Sam's fingers close over Dean's forearm. "And you won't leave me?"

Straight to hell. "No, Sam. I won't leave you."

"I mean it, Dean. Don't...don't leave me."

"I won't, Sam. I promise." It feels like the Judas-kiss but Dean lets Sam pull him forward to his mouth. Dean tries to tell himself it doesn't matter and he doesn't like it.

Dean's whole world is built on lies. What's one more?

It doesn't matter. He doesn't like it.


End file.
